


Goggles Twenty-Seven

by MissDilemma



Series: Tudetale [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: LowHP, Snowdin, Training, TudeTale, good brothers, skelebros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 19:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDilemma/pseuds/MissDilemma
Summary: Sans has a test to run and his ever dependable brother is ready to help him.





	Goggles Twenty-Seven

Papyrus jumped at the sound of his brother’s feet pounding up the stairs. He clicked off his phone and looked over to the basement door. Sure enough, seconds later, his older brother burst out, the knob slamming loudly against the wall. Sans’s smile was ear to ear, his eyes glowing brightly as he held a pair of goggles over his head like a championship belt. 

“The optical magic containment spectacles two-point-seven are ready for testing!” 

Papyrus tried to smile in excitement but ended up leaning his head back on the couch in exhaustion. This was the twenty-seventh model of these goggles, and he couldn’t bring himself to cheer for that umpteenth time. Sans dropped his arms, reading his brother’s energy. 

“I think it’s really gonna help this time, pap.” He fiddled with the elastic. “Please help me test it?”

Papyrus sighed. “We’ll go to the woods outback.”

Sans cheered and ran over to hug his brother. Pap put a hand on his head to keep him at bay. “Save the hugs for when it works.” Sans nodded. 

Paps slipped on his sneakers and they went outside. Papyrus was significantly taller, but he moved at a leisurely pace while Sans was running to their sparring ground. “Slow down or you’ll use all your energy before we even get there,” Papyrus warned. Sans turned around, jogging backwards with his arms out in a taunt. 

“Or you could keep up and we’d both be tired!”

Papyrus smiled, shook his head, and picked up a light jog. Sans chuckled, turned, and ran in earnest. If the goggles worked, running shouldn’t make a difference. If they worked. Papyrus genuinely hoped that they would, but deep down he knew they wouldn’t. They never did. 

They reached their sparring ground, a small clearing covered in snow with a dense wall of trees around it. Sans happily skipped over to his side, rocking from foot to foot. He was still wearing his pink slippers, snow coating the ends of the fur. Papyrus shook his shoulders loose. 

“Commencing test run of optical magic containment –“

“Goggles twenty-seven,” Papyrus interjected. Sans laughed. 

“Goggles twenty-seven.” He stretched the elastic around his skull, placing the goggles over his large eye sockets. “Brace yourself.”

“Always, brother.” Papyrus put his hand on his hip and firmly planted his feet. Sans put his hands in his coat pockets, letting his eye flare to life. His right eye had never glowed, but his left was bright blue and yellow. The magic was strong to the core despite the small reservoir. It was so eager to leave his body that it usually glowed and rose from his eye like a vapor. At least, that’s what normally happened. 

The goggles were acting as a lid, trapping the magic from escaping so quickly. The left goggle was fogging up so much that the right goggle was getting fogged up, too, despite no magic source there. He was smiling like a madman. “You start.” 

Papyrus nodded. He shot bone attacks out. It was a simple start, a row of five rolling by Sans’s feet. Sans leapt back to avoid them with his smooth agility. He didn’t have a lot of energy but he knew how to use what he did have. He smiled at the successful dodge before ripping his hand out of his coat pocket. When he clenched his fist, Papyrus immediately felt the grip on his soul. It was warm and tight and pulled him up onto his toes. Papyrus raised a boney brow at his brother. “Cause in a battle you can just hold the person still and they won’t fight ba-“

Sans moved his arm, yanking Papyrus in that direction. He was making him jump and skid to the side. Papyrus didn’t fight it. He let Sans yank him around, testing his endurance. “Strong grip. Can you multitask?”

Papryus sent walls of bones sliding in the snow, alternating white and blue. Sans stayed relatively still as he weaved in and out. His dodging was always impeccable. And then Sans sent bones at Papyrus, crosses of them that spun and rotated and came at Papyrus at all angles. He evaded many of them, bending and weaving in place so they wouldn’t hit his body, but he let a few hit his arms. One damage each per usual. But Sans was producing more than usual. Maybe the goggles were working.

Sans outstretched his fingers and five tiny blasters appeared around his shoulders. Papyrus dodged their glowing blasts, impressed by their numbers. 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m having a blast!” Sans hollered, shooting another blaster at Papyrus. Pap laughed. 

“Really? I couldn’t tell.” He raised his own hand. He felt the magic surge through his ribcage and up his arm, manifesting in a static cloud above his head. It consolidated and became his own blaster. His blaster was large – always had been – and he could feel the heat of its laser above him. 

It fired.

Sans ducked and rolled away, snow caking his lab coat. The brothers looked at each other in admiration. “I can’t believe you did that,” Pap said. 

“I can’t believe you did that,” Sans said. He smirked. “It’s like you were actually trying to hit me for once.”

“Hey, I always try to-“ Papyrus was silenced by Sans stare. It was unspoken. Papyrus never actually meant to hit Sans. A direct hit would decimate him. “You always dodge it anyway.”

“I do. But let’s see if you can dodge this!” Sans raised his hand right above his head, mimicking his brother. His sockets clenched in concentration, a bead of sweat dripping down his skull. The magic was trying to leak out the edges of the lenses of the goggles as the blaster appeared above his head. 

Papyrus was impressed. Sans normally couldn’t summon something bigger than a bunny. This was at least the size of a Tem. It fizzled in the air, like it was a pill dissolving in water as the magic accumulated in its mouth. And then it shot out. 

In any other fight, Papyrus would have dodged. But he wanted his brother to have a victory and wanted to know what this blaster could do. So he stood there and took it as the blaster shot at him. 

He was expecting it to hurt a little bit more than usual, but it was the same slightly cold burning sensation. 

One damage. He didn’t need to check his stats to know that. 

Sans dropped his hand, smiling wide. “Barely broke a sweat!” Yeah, barely. Sans was huffing. “I can! Do that! Again!”

“Sans-“

“Just watch!” 

Sans raised his hand. Both of his sockets glowed, the magic clogging up in his skull as the air above him transformed. 

Then Papyrus saw it. The quake in his ulna. The flex of his fingers. Stumble in his feet. Heaving of his chest. Just like the other twenty-six times. And like all those times, Papyrus ran to him, arms out-stretched. He called his brother’s name. The goggles glowed. And then the lenses cracked. 

“SAN-“

The magic unleashed from his brothers face in a massive blue and yellow wave, knocking Papyrus back and knocking Sans to the ground. The blaster didn’t even have time to fully form. 

Papyrus crawled onto his hands and knees, not bothering with the snow that was caked onto his clothes before running to his brother. Sans was flat on his back, sockets closed, and goggles still strapped tight around his face. The glass was blown out, scattered around him in the snow. 

Papyrus shook Sans’s shoulders. “Come on, Sans.” Sans didn’t respond. That wasn’t unusual. He lifted Sans onto his lap, cradling his skull. He pulled what was left of the goggles off. “Sans, ya gotta wake up.” He tapped Sans’s cheek.

Papyrus let some of his own magic transfer through his palm, reinvigorating Sans. Sure enough, his brother opened his sockets, gasping in a breath. “There we go.” Sans’s eye lights were bright and flitting around. He saw the glass and goggles in the snow before groaning and covering his eyes. 

“It happened again, didn’t it?”

“No, it worked perfectly. We had a three-hour fight and you totally kicked my ass.” Sans groaned again, trying to sit up.

“Shut up.” He wavered and nearly fell back down. Papyrus cradled him before standing, pulling them both up. “No, you don-“

“Just like the other twenty-six times.” 

Sans sighed. “Just like the other twenty-six times.” Papyrus collected the goggles and the glass, pocketed them, and then carried Sans back to their house. Sans’s HP was max (which wasn’t much), but he was still wasted from the blast and nodding off on Papyrus’s shoulder. 

Papyrus took him up to his room. Sans’s room was a mess – he didn’t have the time or patience to clean up after himself. Papyrus pulled dirty clothes off of Sans’s bed and put his brother under the covers. 

“I’m good, I-“

“Just twenty minutes,” Papyrus said. Sans nodded. 

“Twenty minutes and no more.”

“Course.” Papyrus turned off the lights and left Sans to sleep. He went down to the living room. Then he walked downstairs to the basement. It was just as messy as Sans’s room – though his brother swore there was meaning behind the madness. 

One of the few things Papyrus did understand was the trunk of goggles. He walked over, opened it, and found the other twenty-six busted models. He sighed and put number twenty-seven in. 

He had to hope number twenty-eight would go better, but he couldn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first ficlet for my AU TudeTale. You can learn more about it at my tumblr @underdilemma! Thanks for reading!


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